We are the

MARIJUANA MAJORITY

Tag Archives: barack obama

Today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder backed proposals to reduce America’s reliance on incarceration. In a speech to the American Bar Association, Holder endorsed Congressional legislation that would scale back mandatory minimum sentences, and sent guidance to U.S. attorneys directing them to refrain from subjecting people accused of low-level drug offenses to the most severe sentences.

The following is a statement from Marijuana Majority Chairman Tom Angell:

“The attorney general’s remarks represent a good first step toward scaling back the failed ‘war on drugs.’ These proposals will allow some people charged with drug offenses to have opportunities to put their lives back together sooner and will save taxpayers some money that is now being wasted putting human beings in cages for no good reason whatsoever. However, the criminal justice system should not just have less of a role in the effort to address the medical problem of drug abuse, it should have no role.

“The real value of these proposals will be in the implementation, which drug policy reform advocates have good reason to be wary about. For example, despite a 2009 Justice Department memo urging U.S. attorneys not to go after marijuana businesses that are legal under state law, more state-legal medical marijuana providers were shuttered by federal actions during the first term of the Obama administration than were closed during George W. Bush’s two terms. And, we’re still waiting for the administration to announce its response to the marijuana legalization laws in Colorado and Washington, a policy that the attorney general has been saying is coming ‘relatively soon’ since December. If the administration is serious about using law enforcement resources in a smarter way, it should be a no-brainer to strongly direct federal prosecutors to respect the majority of voters by allowing these groundbreaking state laws to be implemented without interference.

“Clearly, drug policy reformers have a lot of work ahead of us to make sure that the administration’s deeds match its words, but today’s remarks by the attorney general give us a lot to work with.”

Polls Show Majority Voter Support for Letting States Set Their Own Policies

LAS VEGAS, NV — The United States Conference of Mayors unanimously passed a resolution on Monday criticizing the failure of marijuana prohibition and urging the federal government to respect the ability of states and cities to implement policies like marijuana legalization and medical marijuana without interference.

“In November, voters in my city and state strongly approved a ballot measure to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana,” said Mayor Steve Hogan of Aurora, Colorado. “The bipartisan resolution we passed today simply asks the federal government to give us time to implement these new policies properly and without interference. Cities and states across the country are enacting forward-thinking reforms to failed marijuana prohibition policies, and for the federal government to stand in the way is wasteful and contrary to the wishes of the American people.”

Despite campaign pledges that “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue,” President Obama’s administration shuttered more state-legal medical marijuana providers in one term than were closed by federal authorities during the two terms of George W. Bush’s presidency. In the wake of November’s strong passage of initiatives to legalize and regulate marijuana for all adults by voters in Colorado and Washington, Attorney General Eric Holder has repeatedly said that the administration’s response is coming “relatively soon.”

“It’s time for President Obama to enact the changes he promised during the 2008 campaign,” said Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority, the organization that led the effort to pass the resolution, generating nearly 7,000 constituent letters to almost 1,000 mayors across the country. “A strong and growing majority of Americans want states to be able to set their own marijuana laws without federal harassment. Local officials are enacting policies that serve to protect the health and safety of their communities better than the failed policy of prohibition has, and they deserve the respect they are asking for from the Obama administration.”

The U.S. Conference of Mayors resolution notes that “enforcing the costly and ineffective prohibition on marijuana drains limited resources that could be better spent on programs that more effectively serve the public and keep our cities safe from serious and violent crime” and demands that “federal laws, including the Controlled Substances Act, should be amended to explicitly allow states to set their own marijuana policies without federal interference” so that localities can “set whatever marijuana policies work best to improve the public safety and health of their communities.” Until federal laws are amended, the Conference “urges the President of the United States to reexamine the priorities of federal agencies to prevent the expenditure of resources on actions that undermine the duly enacted marijuana laws of states.”

The resolution is co-sponsored by 18 mayors, including Bob Filner of San Diego (California), Mike McGinn of Seattle (Washington), Carolyn Goodman of Las Vegas (Nevada), Jean Quan of Oakland (California), Steve Hogan of Aurora (Colorado), Marilyn Strickland of Tacoma (Washington), Kitty Piercy of Eugene (Oregon), and William Euille of Alexandria (Virginia), among several others.

“The prohibition on marijuana has been ineffective and counterproductive,” said Mayor Stephen Cassidy of San Leandro, California. “Voters in states and cities that wish to break the stranglehold of organized crime over the distribution and sale of marijuana in their communities by legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana should have the option of doing so.”

A recent Gallup poll found that 64 percent of Americans say the federal government should not enforce anti-marijuana laws in states that have opted for a new approach. A poll by the Pew Research Center found that 72 percent of Americans believe that government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they are worth and that a majority (52 percent) support legalizing and regulating marijuana like alcohol. In November, marijuana legalization got more votes in Colorado than President Obama did.

Marijuana Majority is dedicated to helping people understand that marijuana reform is a mainstream, majority-supported issue and that no one who believes that marijuana laws need to be reformed should be afraid to publicly say so. More information is available at http://MarijuanaMajority.com.

President Obama told ABC News’s Barbara Walters in a new interview to be released tonight that “it would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational [marijuana] users in states that have determined that it’s legal.”

“The president’s statement about not targeting individual marijuana users doesn’t mark a shift in policy. The federal government rarely goes after individual users. The real question is whether the Obama administration will try to prevent voter-approved marijuana sales systems from being enacted or if they will force individual users to buy marijuana from the black market, where much of the profits go to cartels and gangs that kill people.

“The president also tries to unjustifiably pass the buck to Congress, claiming that there’s not much he can do to change federal policy on marijuana because ‘Congress has not yet changed the law.’ The fact is, the executive branch was granted the power to unilaterally reschedule marijuana when Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970. The president should lead on this issue instead of deferring to Congress, a branch of government that he probably knows better than most isn’t exactly prone to getting a whole lot done these days.

“One positive thing to take away from this interview is that the president couched his opposition to marijuana legalization by saying he doesn’t support it ‘at this point.’ That could indicate his position on this issue may ‘evolve’ to catch up with the majority of voters who now support letting states set their own marijuana laws, not unlike how his position on marriage equality ‘evolved’ as it became clear what direction the public was moving in.”